Bridges and viaducts › Kew Railway Bridge
Kew Railway Bridge
The railway bridge over the Thames between Strand-on-the-Green and Kew, opened on 1 January 1869: five lattice-girder spans on cast-iron piers 115 ft (35 m) apart, the rails 23 ft 6 in (7.2 m) above Trinity high water.
- Opened
- 1 January 1869
- Line
- The Richmond branch (District line and London Overground)
- Kind
- Lattice girders on cast-iron piers
- Length
- About 566 ft (173 m) between the abutments
- Spans
- Five, with piers 115 ft (35 m) between centres
- Piers
- Four, each of two cast-iron caissons 9 ft (2.7 m) across at the bottom
- Rails
- 23 ft 6 in (7.2 m) above Trinity high water
- Train drawn
- District line S7 Stock
unverified Some of these figures haven’t yet been checked against an official source or a published history. What’s in doubt ↓
Four times larger
Close up
At 10 px a metre, the scale of the train drawings, so the train is the size it is on its own page. Each is cut from the same drawing.
Sources
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Show the 8 sources from The Engineer, Historic England, OpenStreetMap contributors and 4 more
- Kensington and Richmond Railway Bridge, The Engineer, vol. 27, 16 April 1869 (p. 276 the plate) The Engineer (scan by the Internet Archive; plate also on Grace's Guide), 16 April 1869, pp. 274, 276four piers of cast-iron caissons 9 ft at the bottom and 6 ft 9 in at the top, four hollow columns each; abutments of brick with stone mouldings and gothic columns at the angles; span between the piers 106 ft, between the bearings 112 ft 6 in; rails 23 ft 6 in above Trinity water; the plate read at 16.92 px a foot (106 ft = 1,794 px, abutment face to drum) for the end span, the pier's stages, the tabernacle and the south abutment
- The new Kensington, Kew and Richmond lines, The Engineer, vol. 27, 8 January 1869 The Engineer (scan by the Internet Archive), 8 January 1869, pp. 37-38cast-iron cylinders, two to each pier, lattice girders and plate-iron transoms; five openings, piers 115 ft between centres; under edges of the girders about 20 ft above high water; cylinders on concrete in the London clay, filled with brickwork; a small column at each corner, a frieze at the girders' under edge, a panel with a half-round top above, a lamp on each pier; the south embankment about 20 ft high
- Kew Railway Bridge (list entries 1065412 and 1376779, Grade II) Historic England, 1983 and 1998Grade II; designed 1864 by W. R. Galbraith, opened 1869; a lattice girder bridge on four pairs of iron piers in three stages (a round base, a drum with four engaged columns and, above track level, a tabernacle with an arched roof on paired columns framing a cast-iron screen); shore ends of red brick with stone dressings, arched entrances, bands and pilasters
- OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), read 8 November 2026the piers 141 ft, 258 ft, 373 ft and 486 ft (42.85, 78.65, 113.75 and 148.05 m) along the track from its north node (115 ft (35.07 m) apart on average); the river's edges 53 ft 6 in (16.3 m) and 562 ft (171.2 m) along; line speed
- EU-DEM v1.1 (25 m) digital elevation model, served by OpenTopoData European Union Copernicus programme (EU-DEM), via OpenTopoData, read 8-9 November 2026the banks: about 14 ft 1 in to 16 ft 5 in (4.3-5 m) ODN at the abutments (1-4 ft over Trinity high water, taken as 12.5 ft above Ordnance Datum), rising to about 23 ft 0 in (7 m) on the approaches
- Kew Railway Bridge (photographs: June 2016 01; with District line train 2024-07-10; Kew Rail Bridge 2; 2026-04-26; over Thames, from underneath; abutment, geograph 2450462; stonework) Wikimedia Commons (Edwardx; Matt Brown; Iridescent; Jim Linwood; Robert Lamb and others), 2009-2026the trellis girders (about 49-50 diamonds a span, bars at about 57 degrees, no verticals), the girder's depth against the drum, the drum's engaged columns and the base below, the tabernacles on every pier, the abutment's raised blocks, corbel table and pointed arch, today's pale stone-coloured paint and the red brick
- Kew railway bridge track works completed Network Rail, 10 October 2024577 wheel timbers holding the rails on both lines replaced in September-October 2024 (the track on timbers on the deck)
- Thames bridges: Teddington to Chelsea riverthames.co.uk, read 8 November 2026headroom 18 ft 4 in (datum not stated; Kew Bridge's is given as 17 ft 4 in, the PLA's 17 ft 1 in (5.2 m) at MHWS), a check on the 20 ft under edge above Trinity high water
unverified
- The girders' depth (7.5 ft) is read off two photographs (June 2016 01 and the 2024 District line view) against the pier's drum, taken as the plate's 7.27 ft. The plate itself draws the girder 10.4 ft deep (176 px at 16.92 px a foot), and the 2009 panorama gives 8.7-10.3 ft, but it is stitched. A dimensioned figure for the girders hasn't been found. A level, long-lens side view would settle it.
- The girders' under edge is taken as 20 ft above Trinity high water ('about 20 ft', The Engineer, 8 January 1869). The plate puts it at about 22 ft, with the rails (23 ft 6 in, printed) only 1.4 ft above it. With 20 ft, the rails are 3.5 ft above the girders' foot, which fits the trains' roofs above the girders in the 2016 photograph once its viewpoint below the deck is allowed for.
- The end spans (110.5 ft from the abutment's face to the first pier's centre) are 106 ft clear plus half a 9 ft caisson; the plate reads 109.8 ft. So the bridge is drawn 566 ft between the abutments' faces. The often-quoted 575 ft (5 x 115) has no source found.
- The pier's stages below the girders (the base to 3.6 ft, the ring to 5.1 ft, the drum and columns to 18.1 ft, the capitals to 20 ft) are read off the plate down from the girders' under edge. The 2016 photograph puts the drum's foot and the ring about 2.5 ft higher. The base is drawn 9.9 ft wide at high water (plate) and taken straight down to the bed, which is hidden by the water.
- The tabernacles (body 8 ft, cornice 8.5 ft, top 32.6 ft, its cornice 27.8-28.6 ft) are from the plate, set on today's girder top. The photographs show them on every pier, the screens and the domes; the lamps once on top (8 January 1869) are gone and not drawn.
- The abutments are drawn from the plate's south side (the north one mirrored): a seat 10.5 ft deep under the girder ends, a tower 25.7 ft with two raised blocks 3.3 ft over the girder's top, a lower middle with the pointed arch for the riverside path, the stone string course, cornice and corbel table, columns at the angles, and a lower wing wall 6.5 ft. The arch is drawn round-headed, as two photographs of the south abutment show it (2009 and 2011), where the plate engraves a pointed arch; its crown (15.7 ft) and width (8 ft) are the plate's, the springing (11.7 ft) follows from a semicircle. The wing's curved top is drawn flat. That the north abutment matches the south isn't checked on a photograph.
- The ground: the riverside paths at 2.5 ft above Trinity high water (EU-DEM about 14 ft 1 in to 16 ft 5 in (4.3-5 m) ODN at the abutments; both paths flood at spring tides), the approach embankments at 21.5 ft, their slopes, and the river bed (hidden) are estimates. The water is drawn at Trinity high water.
- The trellis (2.16 ft pitch, bars 0.35 ft at 57.5 degrees, chords 0.8 and 0.6 ft) is counted and read off the 2016 photograph, about 49-50 diamonds a span.
- The colours are estimated from photographs in different light: the ironwork's pale stone colour (green in 2009), the red brick and the pale stone dressings.
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